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Crystal Palace (High Level) railway station

Crystal Palace (High Level) railway station was a station in the London Borough of Southwark in south London. It was one of two stations built to serve the site of the 1851 exhibition building, the so-called Crystal Palace, when it was moved from Hyde Park to Sydenham Hill after 1851.The Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway was promoted by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR); by 1860 the LCDR had a line running to Beckenham Junction via Loughborough Junction, some three miles to the north-west of the Crystal Palace site. In order to capture traffic from the LBSCR, the LCDR constructed a branch line from the latter station, with a junction at Nunhead to run directly to the Crystal Palace site. The line opened on 1 August 1865. The line was one of the first of the former South Eastern and Chatham Railway to be electrified by Southern Railway, under "South Eastern Electrification - Stage 1" in July 1925.Traffic on the high level branch never recovered after the 1936 Palace fire, and the station finally closed on 20 September 1954, when services ceased on the branch, although it was not demolished until 1961.The station was designed by Edward Middleton Barry as a lavish red brick and buff terra cotta building. The station was excavated into the ridge below Crystal Palace Parade requiring major engineering works. Although the site of the station was developed for housing in the 1970s, the retaining walls below Crystal Palace Parade and the ornamental portal of Paxton Tunnel to the north are still readily visible.The High Level Station was connected to the Palace by a fan-vaulted pedestrian subway in finely detailed red and cream brickwork. This subway and an adjacent courtyard survived the 1936 fire, and was used as an air raid shelter during World War II. It is now a Grade II listed building . Although the subway is now sealed off, it is sometimes opened to allow organised visits.

The train entombed in the tunnel myth

There is a rumour that in one of the sealed tunnels in the area, an engine or carriage remains hidden collecting dust. Another version of the story, popular amongst local schoolchildren, claims that the High Level station was closed because a commuter train was trapped by a tunnel collapse, entombing the passengers who remain there to this day.These stories are an example of the extraordinary persistence of local urban legend. The story of the entombed train was apparently current in the 1930s. Back then it referred to the abandoned 1860s pneumatic railway on the north side of the grounds of Crystal Palace Park. See Crystal Palace pneumatic railway for more information.Most traces of this had almost certainly been destroyed by the building works for the 1911 Festival of Empire, but there was an unsuccessful archaeological dig for the train sponsored by the BBC's Nationwide current affairs programme in the 1970s.